[00:01.49]Lesson 46
[00:03.64]Hobbies
[00:11.46]Who, according to the author, are 'Fortune's favoured children'?
[00:18.88]A gifted American psychologist has said, 'Worry is a spasm of the emotion;
[00:25.30]the mind catches hold of something and will not let it go.'
[00:29.99]It is useless to argue with the mind in this condition.
[00:33.61]The stronger the will, the more futile the task.
[00:37.48]One can only gently insinuate something else into its convulsive grasp.
[00:43.08]And if this something else is rightly chosen, if it is really attended by the illumination of another field of interest,
[00:50.92]gradually, and often quite swiftly, the old undue grip relaxes and the process of recuperation and repair begins.
[01:00.61]The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is therefore a policy of the first importance to a public man.
[01:08.94]But this is not a business that can be undertaken in a day or swiftly improvised by a mere command of the will.
[01:17.23]The growth of alternative mental interests is a long process.
[01:22.48]The seeds must be carefully chosen; they must fall on good ground;
[01:28.38]they must be sedulously tended, if the vivifying fruits are to be at hand when needed.
[01:36.19]To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real.
[01:44.69]It is no use starting late in life to say: 'I will take an interest in this or that.'
[01:50.70]Such an attempt only aggravates the strain of mental effort.
[01:55.42]A man may acquire great knowledge of topics unconnected with his daily work, and yet get hardly any benefit or relief.
[02:04.33]It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do.
[02:10.11]Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes:
[02:15.42]those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death.
[02:23.04]It is no use offering the manual labourer,
[02:25.86]tired out with a hard week's sweat and effort the chance of playing a game of football or baseball on Saturday afternoon.
[02:34.17]It is no use inviting the politician or the professional or business man,
[02:39.02]who has been working or worrying about serious things for six days,
[02:43.16]to work or worry about trifling things at the weekend.
[02:48.19]As for the unfortunate people who can command everything they want,
[02:52.61]who can gratify every caprice and lay their hands on almost every object of desire--
[02:58.87]for them a new pleasure a new excitement is only an additional satiation.
[03:04.94]In vain they rush frantically round from place to place,
[03:08.86]trying to escape from avenging boredom by mere clatter and motion.
[03:14.10]For them discipline in one form or another is the most hopeful path.
[03:19.88]It may also be said that rational, industrious, useful human beings are divided into two classes:
[03:27.63]first, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure;
[03:34.23]and secondly, those whose work and pleasure are one.
[03:39.69]Of these the former are the majority. They have their compensations.
[03:45.92]The long hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward,
[03:50.82]not only the means of sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and most modest forms.
[03:59.18]But Fortune's favoured children belong to the second class.
[04:04.20]Their life is a natural harmony.
[04:07.19]For them the working hours are never long enough.
[04:11.28]Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays, when they come,
[04:15.71]are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation.
[04:21.16]Yet to both classes, the need of an alternative outlook, of a change of atmosphere of a diversion of effort, is essential.
[04:30.87]Indeed, it may well be that those whose work is their pleasure
[04:35.26]are those who most need the means of banishing it at intervals from their minds.